


Calling back the sun

by Deborah Laymon (dejla), dejla



Series: Gods, Saints, Sinners, and Furies [4]
Category: Highlander: The Series
Genre: F/M, M/M, WIP; non-canonical Immortal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-07
Updated: 2010-12-07
Packaged: 2017-10-13 13:39:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/137982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dejla/pseuds/Deborah%20Laymon, https://archiveofourown.org/users/dejla/pseuds/dejla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kronos meddles in Chinese politics in order to gain power through a Quickening and Jehanne accompanies him in his quest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Calling back the sun

**Calling back the sun**

 **The Tibetan/Mongol border, mid-17th century…**

Layers of silk held in body heat. The _kang_ offered heat from below. Jehanne settled onto the padded surface, arranged her robes around her, then slid her arms into the opposite sleeves, layers falling over layers so warmth collected inside the insulation and surrounded her. She curled her feet under her robes, huddling herself into a silk-covered heap rather like the smiling Buddha in the outer room. With the screen open to the courtyard, she watched the snow falling more thickly as the sun slipped below the horizon. The pines in the courtyard already had white cocoons draping the branches.

The little servant girl brought fresh tea. Jehanne noticed a fresh bruise spread across Kami's cheekbone—another testament to the Second Wife's foul temper, most likely. Previous attempts to comfort the child had only brought further bruises. Jehanne pretended not to notice, but as the girl came within reach, she smiled at her, one quick flicker that the girl returned. The servant bowed and backed out of the room, still bowing. Jehanne let the teapot sit as she stared moodily at the falling snow and the darkening sky.

The screen into the room slid open. Light spread out into the room, the diffused glow of a lamp. Elek Koronel stepped into the room. The lamp-light flickered over the scar that cut through his right eye, setting the illusion that the scar itself lived a separate life from its possessor, twitching and fidgeting in the shadows. The wind from the open screen stirred the tails of his mustache and his long braided queue.

"What, all alone in the dark and cold, lady?" His voice fell like sunshine into the room, amused and pleased with himself more than usual. Elek sat the lamp on the table next to the _kang_ before gathering his robes about himself and settling cross-legged next to her. He felt the teapot, then poured her a cup of tea.

She shook her head.

His slight smile turned to a frown. He held out the cup, still frowning, until she accepted it and took a mouthful. The tea warmed her gut a little.

"Having been banished to my rooms by you, could I do anything else?" She sounded petulant. Whenever he'd reduced her to petulance, she had already lost.

He poured himself a cup of tea and sipped it. "How are your language lessons coming?" And naturally he would ignore her petulance, having already scored.

"I understand better than I speak. The court ladies laugh at me behind their hands. It amuses them." Jehanne glanced sidelong at him, then edged over until she was against him and he could slip his arm around her. His arm brushed the fresh bruise on her left shoulder, and she winced.

"And your other lessons?"

"I have new bruises, as you see."

"But?"

This time she smiled. "Fewer than yesterday. And in new places."

"Ah. Good enough. For the moment."

"Why a Shaolin monk?"

A low chuckle rippled along his shoulders, and he rubbed his hand up and down her arm. "Ah, **you're** my mapmaker, Jehanne. Why do **you** think a Shaolin monk?"

She frowned, but didn't bother to direct it towards him. The simple question did serve to redirect her dislike of this place into reasonable thought. "He calls me _Xue Feng_."

"Snow Phoenix?"

"I should have expected you'd know his language," Jehanne muttered.

"Don't sulk. It doesn't become you." He rapped his knuckles against her skull. "Think, _Sengmo_. Be the lioness they call you. **My** lioness."

She held out her cup for more tea. Elek smiled as he refilled it.

"No one else here studies under him," she said.

"Good, as far as it goes."

Jehanne scowled openly at him, and he rapped her skull again, this time with more force. Rapping him back would only end up with her learning once more that she was no match for him in hand-to-hand… He shifted to make this third slap a backhand. She twisted, as Kua Loong had done a hundred times to her over the past three months. Elek's arm moved one way, and hers another, and then she had the right angle—

His head banged into the cushions. She had him down on his back, with his arm bent behind his back and her hand at his throat.

His dark eyes widened, shocked, and then his mouth widened into a smile that might have frightened a small child into fits—might have set her on guard, if he hadn't been the man who had given her back her sanity. Elek laughed. Then he pulled her head down to his and kissed her, before flipping her onto her back. "Very good. You've broken two cups but you didn't upset the teapot." He grinned down at her, the heat of it igniting fire in her belly. "And for the rest of it?"

"Because he can teach me to do that. And sometimes a sword isn't enough."

"Ah, she's getting it now. That's my lioness." This kiss swallowed all of her breath.

She shuddered as he unwrapped the layers of silk, pausing to kiss and nip at each portion of revealed skin. He paused, lifted his head, and stared down at her as if his desire showed not at all. "Think," he said again. "What else?"

" _Merde_ ," she said. "Elek!"

His lips parted—he bit her chin, gently, and left smaller bites along her jaw. "Think," he said. "Separate."

"He's begun to talk to me. About his…" Jehanne took a breath, letting her hands feel their way along his robes, trying to act without thinking of the act. "Residence, he says."

"And you say?"

"Captivity."

"Is he captive or does he stay because he wishes?"

"Both," she said. Elek's palms slipped under her thighs, and he lifted her legs, bent them back until her knees rested over his shoulders.

In her ear, he said, "Why does he stay?" as he shifted to find her with his fingers, guiding himself in.

Jehanne groaned. Her chest tightened; she panted, her eyes seeing nothing at all until he was sheathed in her. Her brain had been working, though, somewhere beyond the overwhelming sensation, because her lips moved and she heard herself speak. "The boy's mad. He doesn't trust him."

"You mean my lord Dorje Khan?" His hips shifted; he moved into a slow, patient rhythm. She'd known him to last for hours like this, while she lost all conscious thought.

"Yes. The lord of sunrise, advised by a submissive dragon."

This thrust was not patient, jerking her out of pleasure. His growl curled into her ears. "Careful with your tongue."

She dug her fingers into his arms. "Are we captives?"

That yanked him completely out of the mood. His brows tightened; the scar knotted. His eyes glittered, blades in the sun. "No."

" _Mon ami_ , you put the question in my head."

"We are still useful and we've shown no sign of running." His voice lowered, locking the conversation into the space close around them, safe from being overhead. An edge of some emotion hovered far away. His eyes and his body showed nothing but what she expected. "If we needed to leave, I could get us out of here."

"And why do we stay?" The Khan was mad. _Mad and pre-Immortal_. His chief advisor loomed in the background, a dangerous full-Immortal shadow, narrow eyes always probing, long pale hands tucked into his sleeves. Not the court of the Khan, but the court of his Dragon.

Elek took her face between his hard hands, took her mouth with his. "We're being paid. And well." He shifted his weight, pulling back from her, then slid his hands down to lift her hips, and started the smooth steady rhythm once more.

'Being paid' was not enough reason. Rarely did Elek anything purely for money. Another reason was involved here, if she could figure out what it was. Certainly he wouldn't tell her. Sensation was driving out separation. Jehanne fought to get out words—she saw nothing at all now but his face. " _Merde_. Why are _we_ here?"

"I needed to get you out of France," he said. The growl in his voice turned to a purr. "And you had a dream."

"I don't remember—"

The rhythm changed; now harder, faster, as he also lost some of his control—or surrendered it to keep her from talking. He had just urged her to talk, so that made no sense…

But yes-- There had been a dream. A dream of days growing short, of darkness growing longer, and far off on the horizon, a fortress. A fortress they had ridden up on out of days traversing the high grasslands of this area of the Far East. Two years to get here.

Two years working among the warlords of these countries, fighting bandits, collecting payment here and scavenging the bodies of those who tried to attack them. After nearly thirty years of war in Europe, it was a relaxing change. Even here, in the mountains of Tibet, it seemed like a rest, crazy Khan, Mongols, warlords, and advisors alike.

Her vision began to blur; her breath caught in her lungs, then further up her throat. She arched under him as the world revolved faster beneath her, rising upward in spite of his body holding her down.

The world imploded, crashing into her. Her breath rushed out; she could hear nothing, knew not if a scream escaped her. The onrush of pleasure drowned her. She dropped back, boneless, onto the cushions, reveling in one of the two things which compared with a Quickening.

Elek flung an arm across her, holding her down under the coverlets. His scent, musk, hot, and male – overlaid with the perfume of the Khan's robes – pulled her further into sleep.

In her sleep, a little light blossomed into a monstrous flower's flare, like the fireworks of the Khan's celebrations. As she floated somewhere without consciousness, a dream filled her mind.

 _The world reeled. Red bled through the morning sky:  fingers of blood pouring from a red and bleeding sun. There the Khan's horse fell under him, arrow in its throat. There he stood, with his face streaming blood. There his mouth gaped, hurling curses at the men still a-horse. Steel flashed in his hand. He staggered. Steel flashed behind him, cutting across her vision, leaving red spurting in its wake._

She awakened, or came out of the dream, or felt the world rearrange itself and grow solid beneath her feet. She lay with her head on Elek's chest, watching the snow swirl outside, flakes fluttering into the room. The lanterns swayed in the gusts of wind. Around them, she heard nothing alarming; it was still night.

Elek's chest rose and fell beneath her. His breathing told her he slept.

She sat up, slowly, and felt for the teapot. Cold now. She poured a cup of the cold tea and drank half of it anyway.

The bed shifted. A long arm reached around her, then took the cup. "It's cold."

"I can call for fresh."

He pushed the empty cup back into her hand. "No. Come back to bed. We have work in the morning."

A bitter aftertaste lingered on her tongue. The tea? "I had a dream," she muttered, curling herself back under the covers and over him.

"Yes."

Only that. Yes. It sounded—wrong, somehow. Jehanne slid off into sleep, still struggling with why it sounded wrong that Elek should already know she'd had a dream before she told him.

*** *** ***

Her horse champed at his bit, then sidled sidewise. Jehanne brought him back into line as she glanced over her shoulder at her troopers. She glanced down at the sword resting across the saddle: St. Catherine’s sword, freshly sharpened.


End file.
